 Be honest. How much of your day is spent in your Inbox? Fighting fires, responding to requests, trying to meet deadlines. And at the end of the day you wonder what you've accomplished. When was the last time you carved out a couple hours to do something proactive that you've been putting off? Remember how much better it felt to look at what you accomplished that day?
So let's be honest about something else. How much time do you spend measuring your marketing performance? Or more importantly, how do you use that data to actually improve your ROI? For most of us, the deadlines are too close together, and the firefighting never seems to end. So we keep cranking out email campaigns, leaving our pay-per-click ads on auto-pilot, or promising ourselves that we're going to focus more on search engine optimization next month.
If we use our analytics tool at all, it's to produce reports for senior management. But "reporting" is not the same thing as "analysis." There's a wealth of data at your fingertips to tell you what's working and what isn't, so why don't you use it?
Let's do something about it -- right now. Close your inbox, open your Web analytics tool, and let's see what we can find. (I know you're thinking about bookmarking this and coming back to it when you have more time. Who are we kidding? Your bookmarks are full of really good ideas you never come back to. Be bold, and do it now.)
Here are a few starting points. We're only scratching the surface, but you only have so much time before the next fire flares up, right?
Compare your best and worst performing PPC ads
Use more than one metric as your gauge for success if possible. Compare conversion rates as well as average time on site, for example. Once you've located a few of your best and worst performing PPC ads, consider all you know about the differences between those ads. It's common to assume that the keywords are the problem, but you should also compare ad text, landing pages and ad variables such as match type, geotargeting, dayparting and content network settings. Take what you learn from your best ads and test similar changes with your weaker ads before giving up on those keywords.
Find the biggest barrier for email visitors
Segment your email visitors within your conversion funnel. If possible, extend your funnel to include all of your site's primary navigation rather than just a couple of pages in the conversion process. This allows you to see which content and navigation is important to conversion. Also consider measuring other goals, such as white papers or product comparison tools. First, compare the progression rates of email visitors at each funnel stage with those of other visitors. For any significant differences you find, study the messaging on those pages compared to your email messaging and segmentation. For barriers that are common among all visitors, closely examine the navigation, calls to action and any other factors such as forms that require too much information.
Test the validity of your SEO assumptions
For the key phrases you've emphasized most in your SEO efforts, create segments or filters based on the simplest unique root of that term, being sure to exclude common prefixes, suffixes or plural variations. Compare this group with your other keywords to see if they're yielding better conversion rates or higher time on site. Look at the top entry pages for this group to make sure you're driving them to the best possible pages.
It's easy to keep glancing at the same analytics reports, but your ROI won't magically improve on its own. The two most important factors in Web analytics are making time to analyze and focusing that time on items you can change to improve your ROI.
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About The Author
Dan Miller is professional services and sales engineering manager at Lyris. He helps companies adopt data driven marketing techniques to improve their ROI.
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